


The Sound The Sea Makes

by th_esaurus



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 09:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17895506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: “Don’t make me spell it out,” Riku mutters, in a tone you don’t like one bit.





	The Sound The Sea Makes

**Author's Note:**

> well here's seventeen years of my emotions about these dumb boys compressed into one tiny fic. many, many thanks to riona.
> 
> during kh3; the night before the final battle.

The Tower isn’t any kind of home, but you always liked familiarity. The dorm rooms are all the same, bulbous yellow walls and circular windows, coned ceilings, one bed, one dresser, one round, star-flecked rug dead centre in the middle of the room; but just like you can doze in the cockpit of the ship, you can rest easy here, cosy, a homely kinda place to stay. Soft, thick pillows that swallow up your ears and cheeks when you lie on your back. You like that a bunch.

It’s not that you can’t sleep. Just—it doesn’t feel like a good night to be alone. Not when all seven of you are finally gathered, ready - sort of - resting, raring to go. You’d thought Riku might be strategising or something, deep in conversation with King Mickey, but when you rap on his closed door and tumble through it, he’s just in bed, lying, staring up at the ceiling. Frowning at it, like he’s been arguing with the skylight.

At once, he nudges over to make space for you.

You used to have staring contests like this, as kids. Humid, hazy summer nights where you’d both clamber under the duvet in your heaviest pyjamas and, sweating, stare each other down from across the pillow until great salty drips of it started rolling down your forehead to catch on your eyelashes and dare you to blink. Four out of five times, Riku won. Just like your fights and your races. You’d nail him once in a while but nearly always, he persevered.

It’s okay to blink now. The two of you just curled up on top of the sheets, company instead of competition. You can look at Riku like this, really look at him, and see just how much he’s grown. He was always serious, and that sobriety seems to have settled into his features with age. Even his smiles look old.

“D’you think we’ve changed much?” you ask him suddenly. “Since we left home, I mean?”

Riku’s gaze softens. “Some things,” he says. “Some things changed a lot.”

“You think? —What’s the same? Our whole lives turned upside down!”

Riku laughs - he always laughs at you and with you at the same time, somehow - and says, “You’re still an idiot.”

“You— _hey_!” It’s not an insult you can let lie, so you headbutt him feebly on the shoulder, his laughter making his grip on your waist weak. You like the peal of it and want it more, so you tussle with him in earnest, tangling your legs up in his like a sailing knot, getting your wriggly fingers under his t-shirt to where you know he’s ticklish, around his hips and ribcage, rubbing your hair under his chin to itch and annoy him, and all the while Riku keeps laughing, trying to grab you, but you were always antsy, a fidgeter, good at worming your way out of holes, and he can’t seem to manage a proper hold on you—

It counts as a win. You’ll take it as a win, for sure.

It’s a long time before his panting breath evens out again. You have him pinned, see, legs astride his thighs. Probably he could throw you. Probably, not definitely. You’re always getting stronger. Who cares if his arms are twice as thick as yours and his growth spurt left him a foot taller? Probably, not _definitely_.

The rise and fall of his chest is reassuring.

Riku looks past you, back at the ceiling. His eyes seem glassy and distant.

“—I still love you,” he says solemnly. “That didn’t change.”

You guess it makes sense for him to say it aloud, on a night like tonight. When you’re about to venture into a dark unknown, a battle that could cost more than you’re willing to pay. But it’s still a little odd to hear him voice it. You always hoarded his affection, in a lot of ways. Held onto it like the charms and trinkets you’ve picked up along your journey, and keep hidden, safe, in a zipped up pocket on the inside of your jacket. His friendship was always sort of intangible, until suddenly, one day, it was the realest thing in the world.

“I love you too,” you say. It sounds, for some reason, a lot simpler when you say it.

Riku makes a kind of _tsk_ sound under his breath, and shakes his head.

“Hey,” you say.

Riku stops shaking his head but still doesn’t look at you.

“ _Hey_ ,” you say again, louder, nudging at his wrists where they’re trapped under your palms.

“Don’t make me spell it out,” Riku mutters, in a tone you don’t like one bit.

You always hated Riku keeping secrets from you. He didn’t tell you for months and months that his parents were splitting up, just kept it inside, let you find out from your own mom over a gossipy dinner one evening. You were angry, you remember. You’d stalked him down to the beachfront and kicked sand at his back, petulant, and had told him for the hundredth time he could talk to you about anything. He hadn’t cried. Not about his parents, not at your half-yelled attempt at reassurance, and not when you’d wrapped both arms around him and buried your face against his shoulder for ten whole minutes.

He’s never told you much about his first stint in the Darkness, either. The shadow at the edge of all worlds, he’d called it, shivering, and had left the rest unhappily to your imagination.

You both have different kinds of worries now.

You squeeze your knees into his hips, rocking him a little bit side to side, trying to rile him into another bout. Rough-housing is always the quickest way to get his emotions bubbling, even if it’s annoyance more than anything; you’d rather he treat you like a know-nothing dunce, if that means telling you what’s up.

He rolls his eyes, more angry than amused. So you slump down on his chest, shocking the air out of him and grappling with him properly, rolling across the bed like clumsy wrestlers. He grabs the back of your belt and tries to knee you off, but you’re canny and determined, and blow a nasty little raspberry against his neck, making him yelp, jerking away. It’s you who relinquished the upper hand but now you want it back, so you go for his sensitive waist, jabbing your thumbs in both sides to draw out that startled yelp again. He hits up under your chin, pushing until your neck cricks. “Sorry—” he gasps - he never means to hurt you, always checks your nicks and bruises after training - and you use his shock to bash your elbow into his, buckling it, and get his wrists back under your palms. The rich pulse of his heartbeat is thicker now, in your hands, and you don’t know whether that’s from exertion or because your own heart is thrumming like a noisy echo chamber.

You’re kind of panting a bit. Your head low to his.

“I _do_ love you,” you tell him. Suddenly, you wonder if it’s not you he doubts, but himself. “We all do,” you say, triumphant.

When his gaze circles back to yours, his eyes are blue, blue, blue. They always are, but sometimes, in a certain light, they seem almost crystalline: with the sun setting peacefully outside the tall, kaleidoscope windows, light darting off the daffodils walls, he’s sparkling. You always liked catching Riku looking at you, just because you liked his eyes so much.

Then he k—

Then he cranes up under your grip and kisses you.

Not a peck, not like your mom kissing you goodbye or goodnight, or the soft press of Kairi’s lips on your forehead that one time you were bedridden for a week in Radiant Garden with flu, or even that time you’d taken him to Christmas Town to watch the New Year fireworks, in that week of rest before the flurry of preparing for _next_ Christmas, and you’d both turned at the same time and it was snowy-cold so you’d been sitting too close and his mouth kind of brushed against your cheek, and it wasn’t so dark among the fairy lights that you couldn’t see him flush, embarrassed, but you pretended not to anyway. It was just an accident.

This is an on-purpose kiss. You can feel the wet inside of his bottom lip under yours, and that means his mouth is a little bit open.

It doesn’t last long enough for you to figure out how you’re supposed to react.

Riku’s head falls back onto the pillow with a soft _whumph_. He’s back to avoiding your eyes, glaring off to the side, somewhere past your elbow. His lips - pink, wow, _pink -_ are just about parted. So he did kiss you open-mouthed, then. That makes your stomach feel—kind of gooey.

“Like that?” Riku mutters. He sounds angry, but not angry at you. He’s only ever angry at himself these days.

For a real long time, you’re both quiet. You don’t know what to say, and that’s the worst feeling in the world. Riku, maybe, is more comfortable with silence, but his unhappiness with this particular pause is palpable. He twists his left hand under your palm, testing but not breaking your grip. He’s still avoiding your eyes, and that gives you a chance to examine every part of his face; it’s necessary, sometimes, for you to make an effort to guess what Riku’s feeling. His eyes are more whites than iris, turned away from you like this, and his jaw is tense, a little muscle below his ear flexing under the skin as he clenches his teeth.

He clocks you watching. Bucks his hips, annoyed, but you’re not ready to let him brush you off yet.

“Come on,” he snaps. “We need to sleep. Tomorrow’s—well, tomorrow.”

Donald told you once, half ranting, that you’re too impulsive. Your heart’s much louder than your brain. You were confused, at the time, because you didn’t see anything wrong with that, and you still don’t.

Dipping your head just quickly, you press a kiss against Riku’s lips. That lopsided liquid feeling in your stomach lurches again. It’s not nice, but it’s not _not_ nice.

“Stop it,” Riku mutters, even before you’ve fully pulled back.

That rubs you up the wrong way. “You did it first,” you retort.

“That was—” Riku stops, huffing. He rolls his eyes, then jerks his hands out from under your grip, so sudden you almost fall forward, but he catches you, same as always, hands on your shoulders. You won’t fall but you can’t rear back either. He’s holding you at a very specific distance. “That _meant_ something. To me, anyway.”

“Why can’t it mean something to me?!” you say, sounding petulant in that whiny way you always do when some deeper understanding seems just out of your grasp.

“It can,” Riku sighs, serious. “But I don’t think it does.”

“You don’t always know everything.” You mean it to sound aloof, mysterious in the way Riku often makes things; but you just sound sad.

Finally, as if in mutual agreement, you let each other up.

You’re mad at him. Not truly angry - you never are, you don’t know if you’re capable of it - but there’s an uncomfortable maelstrom of feelings in your belly and chest that you want him to explain. You like things simple. Not everything has to be complicated, and friendship should be least of all: you love Riku, and that’s it.

Arms crossed tightly over your chest, you flop back down on the bed. Carefully, shifting back just an inch or two, Riku lies down too. His chest and hips are far away from you, but he forgets about his feet; when you stretch your bare toes out just a bit, they touch the skin of his ankles. You pester him like that for a minute. Bothersome little tickles.

Half a smile creeps onto his lips.

“You asked, y’know,” he says, after a long time.

“I know,” you mutter, out of sorts. Then: “You never said anything.”

A tiny panic seizes your heart for a second. Had the two of you never said it, truly, through all these years? That you loved each other?

“I was scared,” Riku says carefully.

“Of me?!”

He shakes his head. His hair flops over his eyes. He’d cut his hair short a couple months back, but kept his fringe long. Like it’s somewhere to hide. “Of the darkness. Of what it might—make me do to you.”

You can’t understand this at all.

A shadow of something bitter and fearful darts across Riku’s eyes, and suddenly you need to hold him. To make sure he’s really there, not a dream, not a vision, not a shadow given form. You unfold your arms very carefully, and scoot a little closer on the bed, your feet tangling with his in earnest now, and you take both of his hands in yours. A soft little ball of fingers and palms between the jerky rise and fall of your nervous chests. It’s such a familiar feeling, his hands in yours. As though you’ve dreamt about it far more than you’ve ever held it waking.

“Sora,” Riku says, a quiet warning.

“Ri- _ku_ ,” you shoot back, making fun of his solemn tone.

“We really do need to sleep,” Riku sighs.

“Can I sleep here?” you ask at once. As if the question spilled out before you’d even thought of it.

Riku’s eyes widen just the slightest. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says quietly.

“Yeahhh, but I never really have those,” you ramble. “Goofy always comes up with the best plans, and then Donald pretends he thought of them first, but I always just follow my heart. You should try it sometime, it usually works out pretty good.” You grin. You like mocking him, very gently, when he’s at his most earnest. But your grin falters when he doesn’t smile back.

He looks—lonely, and you still don’t know why.

“Can I stay?” you ask again, whispery, needing him to say yes.

Riku eases his hands out of the tight bundle, but only so he can tangle his fingers properly into yours, left hand first, then right. He makes the tiniest move forward, as if he’s going to kiss your knuckles, and then stops himself. But he does murmur, “Okay—okay.”

Another one of those unexpected questions bubbles up out of you. “You can kiss me again, if you want?”

Your heart thumps like a fist is squeezing it.

Riku rolls his eyes, settling into the bed. You hadn’t noticed how tense he was until you see it all ebb out of him, his shoulders slumping, his chest and hips easing forward. “Just don’t snore, okay? You always snored when we had sleepovers. Kairi’ll back me up.”

But the idea has planted its feet now, and won’t be moved. “You can kiss me again,” you say once more, even bolder this time.

“If I want?” Riku mutters, his gaze darting away.

“No,” you say simply. “Because I want you to.”

Quickly, suddenly nervous, you dip your head to your joined hands and kiss there twice, three times, both his fingers and yours. And then, aiming better, you let your mouth linger, warm and damp, on the back of his hand. Kissing him there like you want him to kiss you on your lips.

He looks so hesitant. You hate that look on him. Even when you were kids and it was pure bluster, he always looked like he knew exactly what to do.

Riku’s lips, when he kisses you, are dry. The same chapped saltiness of the sea breeze that dried yours out every summer at home. But it’s not from the Destiny ocean, it’s from the Dark Margin, the water so viscous with salt that it can hold your entire weight. Your skin had felt cracked and tight from a single battle there; Riku spent so long in the Darkness that it lingers even on his lips—

The thought makes you abruptly miserable. All the while you were travelling, voyaging, you three half-pints, Riku was clawing through the Darkness with the King, every step a fight against the weight of that heavy world.

You want to kiss him back. That’s—that’s what you should’ve done from the start.

So you grab his arms, just above the elbow. Then slide your hands up to his shoulder, and further up still, under his jaw, holding him there, pulling him against you, your lips pressing back against his. Curious, for a while, and then - you were always a quick learner - you let your mouth fall open, just like his. Oh. Oh, it’s—better, this way. His wet breath. Everything very, very warm.

Riku’s tense again. His hands stiff at your waist, even as his lips are pillow-soft.

“Is this okay?” you whisper, just to make sure.

“I’m—I don’t know,” Riku whispers back.

“Why?” you ask, needy. Sometimes you don’t need to know the ins and outs, as long as everything works out; but with Riku, you want to fathom every inch of his heart. All the darkest parts that he tries to shield from you.

Riku slides his hands over yours where they rest on his cheeks. His hands are pale - he never tanned like you, even in the Destiny sunshine - and it makes the pink flush of his skin look all the more pretty. “I’m scared it’s not enough,” he murmurs.

So much of what Riku says feels like it’s just around the corner of your comprehension. That one day you’ll catch his fleeing shadow, but for now you’re just running around in circles.

You have time. You have the time, and you’re persistent. _Annoying_ , some people say, but you just like to think you’re motivated.

Catching him off guard, you jam both thumbs into the corner of his mouth. He knows what’s coming before and rolls his eyes, deeply chagrined, but lets you pull his lips into a wide, toothy grin, matching it with your own gurning smile. Then you release him, push his cheeks together until his damp lips purse up, and kiss him again, so bright.

“It is okay,” you say firmly, the answer to your own question. “I’ll always be here for you, Riku.”

The sun, outside, is almost fully set. The next time it rises, you’ll gear up for the fight of your life, all of you. But there’s a long stretch of calm night before that, just for you and Riku.

“I love you,” Riku murmurs.

“I love you, too,” you tell him, earnest as ever.

He takes your right hand from his cheek and kisses it. “I’m—I’m in love with you, Sora.”

Your stomach doesn’t feel lumpy and weird about it this time. Just waves of feeling, ocean-like.

You nod. “Now I know it.”

“I can live with that,” Riku says, nodding back. He’s smiling.

He’s smiling.


End file.
